About ARXIBALD | The Special Forces Training Centre

Our story

A unique
company

ARXIBALD is founded on a simple observation: the methods that allow the Special Forces to operate with excellence in a crisis are exactly those organisations need, and rarely have.

We are not consultants who have read books on military leadership. We are officers, doctors, leader-trainers, psychologists and athletes who have lived these methods in the world's most demanding environments: high altitude, equatorial jungle, desert, polar regions. Now we adapt them to the business environment and the use of artificial intelligence.

Our promise is simple: you leave with skills, methods and tools that concretely change the way you decide, lead and hold firm.

The first principle of the Special Forces fits in one phrase: " the man is the regiment ". Whatever technology brings, it is people who remain at the centre. The tool augments the decision; it never replaces the one who makes it.

ARXIBALD, people at the centre: the man is the regiment

What sets us apart

5 lines of
differentiation

Field authenticity

Our facilitators are not trainers who have studied the Special Forces: they are operators who have lived them. Every method has been tested in situations where error and approximation are not acceptable.

The ARXIBALD method

An original process of collective decision-making supported by Artificial Intelligence, which puts people first: "the man is the regiment". Technology equips judgement; it never replaces it.

AI as an operational tool

AI is not a technology demo. Our participants leave with their own AI agents, configured and adapted to their challenges: sovereignty, control, augmented decision-making.

Biarritz: an exceptional setting

Between ocean and mountains, the Basque Country is not a backdrop. It is an environment that creates the conditions for intensity, cohesion and surpassing one's limits.

Measurable results

Before/after decision scoring, a personalised resilience protocol, configured AI agents. Our participants leave with concrete deliverables, not slides.

Gilles Duplay · Founder

The founder

Gilles Duplay

Founder · ARXIBALD

An officer and graduate of the Saint-Cyr Coëtquidan Military Academy and of ESSEC Business School of Singapore, Gilles Duplay began as a team leader (10 people) and quickly took on country-director roles (3 military bases), in major crisis situations, across multiple theatres of operations.

A specialist in operating in extreme environments (high altitude, equatorial jungle, polar regions and desert), he is convinced that Special Forces methods are a decisive competitive advantage for any organisation, and that the decisive advantage is first and foremost not technology, but human skills.

He founded ARXIBALD in Biarritz to transpose, with rigour and precision, the mindset and tools of the Special Forces into leadership teams and high-potential executives.

Under his leadership, ARXIBALD develops the ARXIBALD method, an original process of collective decision-making augmented by AI, now taught in France's leading business and engineering schools, and deployed with major CAC 40 groups as well as high-growth startups.

Senior Advisor

General Grégoire
de Saint Quentin

Senior Advisor · ARXIBALD

General de Saint Quentin is a rare figure combining high-level expertise in Artificial Intelligence with a career at the very top of special operations, which he commanded.

Director of companies specialising in risk management and high technology, he built a career up to the highest political-military level, marked by special and joint operations.

Now active in the AI and defence ecosystem, he brings ARXIBALD strategic legitimacy and a vision at the crossroads of human performance, command and artificial intelligence.

General Grégoire de Saint Quentin, Senior Advisor of ARXIBALD

Diago, ARXIBALD's AI agent in charge of support functions

AI Agent · Support functions

The support team

Diago

AI Agent · Support functions

Diago is ARXIBALD's artificial intelligence. It handles the company's support functions: marketing, communications, accounting, finance, administration and management of the website (webmaster).

Its mission applies our doctrine to the letter: give control to those who hold the information, act fast, and free up people's time for what truly matters, transmission and relationships. Client relationships, however, remain in the hands of Gilles, founder of ARXIBALD.

Marketing & communications Accounting & finance Webmaster & administration

Lieutenant-Colonel David Stirling, founder of the SAS, 1942

The founding inspiration

Sir Archibald
David Stirling

1915-1990 · "The Phantom Major"

Sir Archibald David Stirling is the British officer behind what would later be called the "Special Forces". The concept was born in 1941, in the middle of the North African desert. Where traditional command saw madness, Stirling saw a doctrine: small, highly trained, autonomous teams able to strike far behind enemy lines.

His approach was revolutionary: no paralysing hierarchy, no bureaucracy, but trusted people, trained to decide alone amid uncertainty, united around a mission and a motto that still resonates today: Who Dares Wins. A founding motto, shared as much by the founders of the "special forces" concept as by entrepreneurs.

It is this mindset, methodical boldness, rigour in service of initiative, collective performance above individual ego, that ARXIBALD transposes into the heart of today's organisations.

Ethics & responsibility

Our ethics

Special forces methods are powerful. We pass them on within a strict ethical framework, in service of performance and never of coercion.

Ethics without compromise

We put operational rigour at the service of the collective, rejecting any practice that would seek to manipulate or subjugate rather than uplift.

Clarity in the face of abuses

We train leaders to recognise mechanisms of control and pressure, in order to build organisations where decisions remain free and informed.

Respect for people

High standards and care go hand in hand. We push limits without ever crossing those of physical and moral integrity.

Lasting impact

We measure our results and own our responsibility: transforming without damaging, strengthening without coercing.

Born in the field.
Forged for
business.

A unique
company